Archive

Will the contrasts continue?

November 15, 2016   ·   0 Comments

NOW THAT THE SEEMINGLY endless U.S. presidential election is history, it will be interesting to see whether the contrasts between that experience and Canada’s federal election last year will be followed by similar contrasts in the coming years.

As you’ll no doubt recall, last year’s federal campaign was the longest in modern history, the election having been called in early August, more than two months before the Oct. 19 vote, seemingly because Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s confidants felt a long campaign would benefit the governing Conservatives.

South of the border, the campaign seemed to run closer to two years, well before the first primaries. Although Donald Trump didn’t announce his candidacy for the Republican nomination until June 2015, well after some others had indicated their intentions, he gave  a signal in February when he  didn’t renew his contract for the television show The Apprentice.

Apart from length, the contrast in the two election campaigns could hardly be over-stated.

In ours, there were three main parties, all of which had leaders with parliamentary experience, and for the most part advertising was devoid of the attack ads tried in previous elections. The closest to anything of the sort was the Conservative commercial that portrayed Justin Trudeau as “just not ready.”

What a contrast hat was to Mr. Trump’s portrayal of his opponent as “Crooked Hillary,” and his promise that if he were elected he would put her in jail, presumably for destroying 30,000 emails from her personal server. (So much for the U.S. Constitution’s separation of powers.)

If it’s true that in the Internet age elections have more than ever become popularity contests, what Canadian voters witnessed was the emergence of Mr. Trudeau as more popular than either Mr. Harper or NDP leader Tom Mulcair, that popularity moving the Liberals from third place into a majority government, albeit with less than 40 per cent of the popular vote. And since then, public opinion polls suggest that his Liberal government has maintained its popularity despite its inability thus far to keep some promises made during the campaign.

In contrast, the two U.S. presidential candidates may have become the most unpopular ones in that country’s history, with the only certainty as the polls opened Tuesday being that most of Mr. Trump’s supporters were male, white, older and poorly educated, while those voting for Ms. Clinton would tend to be female, black or hispanic, younger and better-educated.

As we see it, one thing shared by most if not all Americans is a long-standing frustration over the fractiousness in Washington, perhaps best illustrated by the refusal of the Republican-dominated Senate even to consider President Barack Obama’s nominee to fill the vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Now, with a demagogue set to occupy the White House for at least the next four years, it will be interesting to see whether the divisiveness observed in the election campaign will be exacerbated.

Perhaps the most interesting contrast between the situations faced by Justin Trudeau and Donald Trump following the elections is the type of mandate they achieved.

There’s no doubt that both politicians made a lot of promises, but only Mr. Trudeau is in a position to keep them, thanks to the majority of seats the Liberals have in the House of Commons.

In contrast, Mr. Trump is going to find that some of his promises, such as in the area of building walls and cancelling trade agreements, won’t find support among some members of both parties in Congress.

Of course, there’s always the possibility that this political neophyte (who has never held elective office at any level) will discover it’s easy to abandon some of his promises simply by blaming others, be it Congress or the courts, for his inability to carry them out.

Of course, only time will tell.

Readers Comments (0)